


Control

by MicheConnor



Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M, Schmoop, crackfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 13:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MicheConnor/pseuds/MicheConnor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex gets a new car.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Control

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd because I really didn't intend to write this, it just happened. All errors are mine. Feedback would be lovely! (Cross-posted to the
> 
>   
> [](http://community.livejournal.com/kill_lana_lang/profile)  
> [kill_lana_lang ](http://community.livejournal.com/kill_lana_lang/)comm.) Also, it should be noted that I don't actually hate Lana. She gets me more Lex time on Smallville, and that makes me happy. Lastly, Many, many thanks to Keikokin for her unknowing inspiration, and to Ladydreamer and the rest of the sockpuppet crew for the grins they gave me as they read this, because yes, we are all MAL's sockpuppets. If you'd like to see MAL, look here: [MAL](http://pics.livejournal.com/miche_connor/pic/0006196s/)
> 
> Originally posted December 18, 2006.

  **Control**  
  
 _If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough._  
\--Mario Andretti  
  
\---

_Luthor Castle, Smallville, Kansas_.

"Hey Lex!" Clark's smile was a brilliant and beautiful thing and it glowed in the dark study--a testament to good dental hygiene and daily infusions of calcium.

"Clark!" Lex rejoined, looking up from his laptop and closing it quietly. "What brings you here?"  
  
"Oh, the usual. I just wanted to see what you were doing and why you've been hiding in here for the last couple of weeks. And besides, I brought your produce over. We've got some really good apples."  
  
"Apples?" Lex echoed Clark questioningly. "And you didn't bring one in to me?"

"Nope." Clark grinned again, and rocked back and forth on his feet. "Gonna have to go with me to get 'em."

Lex shook his head and sighed, feigning annoyance. "I don't have any shoes on. I'm afraid you'll have to wait a bit for me, while I--"

Clark held up a pair of loafers and sort of _skipped_ over to his best friend as he dramatically dropped to one knee and presented the footwear. "Oh possessor of the most fine and sweet auto in Smallville, allow me to place your, err, shoes before you." 

"Clark," Lex said with faux irritability as he snatched his shoes, "You are a goof."

Clark nodded agreeably. "Uh huh. But--" He leaned in and twisted so that his head rested on Lex's knees as he looked upward at Lex through his tousled bangs. "You still love me anyway."

Lex stood up and grinned as Clark slid to the floor. "I don't know about that. Seems I _might_ have changed my mind." He slipped his feet into his shoes and sniffed thoughtfully at the prone young man on his floor. "Since I haven't, as you pointed out, seen you in some weeks. And, I think--" He stepped over Clark's legs as he headed for the door. "You only come around to ride in my cars."

"Um, Lex?" Clark scrambled to his feet and hunched his shoulders adorably as he moved to stand right next to the bald man. 

Lex languidly looked over his shoulder and blinked. "Yes?"

"You're right. I'm all about the cars." Clark sighed and shrugged. He looked quite defeated though the gleam in his eyes belied his true intent. "I mean, can you blame me?"

"Nope." Lex laughed. "Not at all, because I lust after my cars." 

"See? Proof, right there." Clark draped a heavy arm across Lex's shoulder as they moved as one for the door. "Who could resist those curves and moves?"

"No one," Lex admitted, pursing his lips almost slyly as he tucked his arm about Clark's waist and tugged him into the garage. 

Both men stood, staring at the vehicle before them. Each seemed at a loss for words, if only momentarily, but Clark edged closer to the Murcielago and dared to run a fingertip over the gently sloping hood of the engine compartment. He thought, "If there was a car that suited Lex, it was this--the Lamborghini." 

Low, svelte, sensuous with leather bucket seats and a brassiere over well-defined  headlights, all painted the rich color of cold-iron: a deep grey that glinted with dark plum and purple, like an oil-slick on a winter puddle. "God, Lex. When did you get this?"

"Oh, about ten minutes before you showed up."

"What a coincidence!" Clark exclaimed almost absently as stared intently at the enameled paint and sighed. It looked like it was three feet thick, and glowed almost ethereally.

"Not really. I wanted to share it with you."

"Wha-Oh!" Predictably, the dark-haired youth blushed. 

"Let's see what it can do, shall we?" Lex's voice was a well-oiled purr that Clark knew would be echoed by the car's engine. 

"Heck yeah! Um. How--" Clark looked confused for a moment as he examined the door of the car, trying to find the opening mechanism.

Lex simply approached the car and spoke. "Hello, MAL. Open your doors, if you please?" 

Clark jumped just a little when the vehicle released its locks on the doors and they swung out just a little. "Lex--what--How--"

"It's got the latest in voice recognition technology. As well as Blue-Tooth and Ipod components." Lex grinned sharply. "And, LexCorp's latest in virtual reality personality simulators."

"Hello, Lex. Going to go for a ride?" A rich tenor sounded from inside the car.

"Why, yes, MAL. I'd like to take you and my friend Clark on a tour of town. How do you feel about that?"

"Holy crap, Lex!" Clark's smile grew bigger as he gently tugged the door open and slipped inside as Lex did. "This is so awesome!"

"I think it is a good idea. I have downloaded the maps of my surroundings, but I am aware that they are some years out of date," MAL said melodiously from a small row of equalizer lights on the dashboard that moved in parabolic waves.

Lex pulled on his seatbelt and smiled as Clark belted himself in as well. "Alright MAL. Let's go!"

MAL obediently started his engine and moved for the garage's exit. "Activating Garage door opener," He stated blandly, and pulled out onto the long drive toward the castle's gate.

"Lex--you're NOT driving?" Clark sounded aghast though his expression seemed more greedy than frightened as he watched the car move on its own.

"No need, Clark. MAL will tell me when I need to take over."

"All Systems nominal. Access integration not required," MAL said almost primly as he and Lex answered Clark one after the other.

"Oh." Clark turned in his seat just a bit and stared at his friend as the car moved of its own accord. "So -- Why is his name MAL?"

Lex's lips curved into a smile. "It's his name. He's part and parcel of a Murcielago Auto Lamborghini. M - A - L." Lex glanced at Clark who seemed both wide-eyed and rapt at his answer. "It's the name of the Car that he's built into, Clark."

Clark blinked, and nodded. "Oh. Maybe--he should have his own name then? I mean, separate from the car?" he asked as he lovingly brushed his fingers along the whorled wooden dash. "I mean, I'd hate to be neglected like that, just because of the way I looked."

"A valid point, Clark, but there's just one little thing. He's a machine." Lex smiled possessively at the steering wheel as it moved of its own accord. "He doesn't care one way or another what he's called."

"I don't know, Lex. He sounds like he should-I mean, his voice is so, well, real."

"I'll take that as a complement then, since that algorithm was one I helped design. Lamborghini made the work of art that we're in, so I can't take credit for that."

"I'll say, it is that." Clark looked at Lex and smiled shyly. "So, um, Lex?"

"Yes?"

"Aren't you bored way over there?"

Lex laughed, amused, as he leant over the shifting column for a few seconds, ostensibly to study a readout. Really, it  was to put him closer to Clark. "Well.  Not particu-" 

Clark cut him off with a well-timed kiss, and after that, neither noticed the windows and windshield darkening to near opacity, nor the seats moving backward for their comfort. 

MAL nearly hummed as he wound his way over and through all of the roads marked on his maps for Smallville and its surrounding areas.

  
\---

  
MAL parked himself outside the Talon, and waited. Lex and Clark were inside and he knew they'd come straight to him once they saw him there. He knew he looked appealing and, and he'd had more than one person come up to peer in through his windows, the words 'sleek' and 'sexy' muttered under their breath. Only once had he sounded his alarm, and that person jolted away in shock. Apparently talking alarms were something altogether new in Smallville. 

_"This is the Murcielago Auto Lamborghini. You have activated proximity sensors. Please step away now. Police will be notified in fifteen seconds if alerts do not immediately cease."_

The equalizer lights fluttered in amusement as all humans scattered away. Gullible creatures. They should have realized that it would have taken 15 seconds just to connect to the satellite uplink. A few flashing lights and a voice and they scattered like leaves. It was pleasing to MAL. They should scatter, should fall away from him like the inferior creatures that they were. 

Few creatures,  MAL decided, had aesthetic. Lex did, certainly. He moved as smoothly as a well-oiled and tended machine.  And, after a few picosecond's of  consideration, so did Clark, though that one tried to conceal his motions with well-timed distractions. MAL didn't care why Clark did such things, but it was pleasing that they liked to ride and be in him, because they made him look . . .  wanted. Owned. And that, MAL knew, was the reason to exist at all. 

\---

Clark and Lex sat in the Talon, having coffee and discussing the finer points of John Donne's sonnets. 

"Clark. Clearly, this is a love sonnet. Look at the wording." 

"Lex, it's about religion."

"Clark." Lex just looked at his friend for a moment. "Let me explain."

"Okay. I'm listening." Clark folded his huge hands almost primly and regarded Lex steadily.

He was listening, Lex thought, but not hearing what he was trying to say. "Look at how the sonnet opens. `Batter my heart, three-personed god, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new.' Clearly, he's writing about the conflict between resistance and attraction that comes naturally with the emotion of love. The only thing that makes this sonnet `holy' are the words, `Three personed god'. Take them out - and read it again."

Clark frowned, looking dubiously at Lex for a long moment. "Well okay, but I don't-Okay. Um, what should I put there instead?"

Lex shrugged. "Doesn't matter, any four syllables would work." 

That made Clark grin. "Uh, okay." He cleared his throat. "Batter my heart, oh cuddly one, for you As yet but. . ."

Lex choked back a laugh. "Oh cuddly one?"  His cheeks turned faintly pink.

"Well, yeah. You said any four syllables-"

"*Cuddly* one?" Lex stared at Clark. "Handsome, maybe. Mannered one. Well-hung, even! But--cuddly?"

"Well-"

"Clark, I am NOT cuddly."

"Beg to differ."

"You have no idea what the word MEANS."

"Beg to differ."

"I need to get back to work."

Clark grinned again and leaned close to the other man to murmur. "Oh, beg to differ, oh cuddly, cute, smooth and silky snuggums."  

"You've lost it. I'm out of here."

"Okay. But - I'll see you later?"

"Yeah. Come over after dinner. I am so going to trounce you at pool."

"Hah. You wish. I'll be there around eight."

Lex shook his head as he rose to his feet and headed toward the cash register and the door out. "Lana," he said quietly to get her attention.

"Oh. Lex! I saw you and Clark--working on the poetry homework?" Lana smiled up at him gently. "I know he was having a hard time with it in class."

"Nothing that a little explanation didn't clear up," Lex said smoothly in return, the faint line in his forehead the only tell to mark his temper.

"Oh, well then. I'll just check with him in a bit and see how he's doing, then."

"Yes. You do that." Lex paused and pulled out a twenty from his pocket. "Ring me up, will you? And Clark's too."

"Oh, he won't like that Lex. You know how stubborn he is."

"Do it, anyway, Lana?" Lex's voice was low, cool to the point of freezing and intent.

"Oh, of course." Lana smirked just a little, a faint malice in her eyes as she passed him the change. "And that reminds me. There are some papers from your lawyer? In the office. Did you want-"

"I'll look them over, but I don't think that there's anything to be concerned about."

"I appreciate it, Lex." 

He nodded and moved back toward the office and Lana moved almost immediately toward Clark. "Hey, Clark," she said with her most ingenuous smile.

"Hey yourself," Clark responded, smiling back at her. "I saw Lex go into the Talon office--nothing bad, I hope?"

"Oh, no. Nothing. Just some papers he wanted to look at from the lawyer." She pulled her lips into a straight line and shrugged. "You know how he is. Has to be in control of everything."

Clark nodded, slowly. "Yeah. But can you blame him? He's got an excellent reason why, growing up with _Lionel_ for a father." He grimaced. "I mean, can you imagine?"

Lana leaned forward and pushed Clark's bangs out of his eyes. "I can imagine, indeed. You know. . ." Her voice turned playful. "He bought your coffee." She paused. "Again. And I was just wondering. . . "

"What? Oh you know, he likes to do things for me. It's just because I. . . well, you know. The whole life-saving thing."

"Yeah. Life-saving." Lana pursed her lips. "So. Anyway. Does he. . . do . . . anything else?"

Clark looked blank. "I don't understand." 

"I am sure you don't," Lana said softly, with a sigh. "Oh well. I should see if there's anything he needs back there." 

Clark stared at her a moment. "Yeah. I uh, need to get this done. Heh. Donne." 

"Oh, punny, Clark. Haha." Lana wrinkled her nose at him and stepped away to slide behind the counter and into the office area.

Clark watched the pair of glowing skeletons with some interest, though he tried to make it look like he was simply staring off into space. He sniffed as the smaller of the pair tried to put a hand on the shoulder of the other, and then they leaned so close together-A kiss? Was that it?  Why else would those slight skeletons stay tangled like that for so long?  Angrily, Clark threw his papers into his backpack and left the coffee shop. 

MAL was waiting for him, it seemed, for the passenger door popped open and Clark got inside. "Hey MAL. Can you give me a ride home, please?"

"Of course, Clark." MAL's voice was soothing and the gentle flow of red and green lights were reassuring. "You sound a bit upset. Would some music assist with relaxation?"

"No, no music. Thank you." Clark glared out the window as the Talon receded. He could see Lex's smooth face in the window, and an expression of surprise on his face as he watched MAL drive Clark away.

"Perhaps you would care to tell me the nature of the situation that has, as best my sensors can determine, tightened the muscles in your back, buttocks and thighs?"

"Well, it's just that-Lex and I-we have a thing."

"A thing?" MAL was neutrally inquisitive. "Please ellucidate."

"Yeah. A relationship kind of thing. At least, I thought we did. But I just saw Lana all over Lex and he wasn't. . .Well, it doesn't matter." 

"What is a `Lana'?"

"She's a girl."

"Lana-is a female human?"

"Yeah."

"I have noticed that female humans tend to put themselves into Lex's way."

"You got that right."

"You said that she was 'all over him'. In what way can a human be all over another? Has she some viscous property or other intrinsic capability that allows her to change her form?" MAL posed the question lightly, his tone one of mere scientific interest.

"Well she had her arms around his neck--I think. And they were leaning close. And--Well. I don't know why they'd stand like that." Clark stared at his hands for a long moment.

"Perhaps the situation was not as it seemed; from what you have described, several innocuous positions could be ascribed to the moment."

"You're probably right, but-Lana's just. . . well. She's just so beautiful. I can't compare to that. I mean, it's apples and oranges." Clark sighed softly. "And I know how Lex likes apples."

"I cannot judge her aesthetical appeal. I have not scanned her," MAL said apologetically. "But you have a very high aesthetic index, Clark, according to my programming."

"What? I don't understand. . . You have an aesthetic analysis program?"

"Yes. It seemed appropriate, given my form." MAL turned onto the highway that eventually crossed Hickory Lane and Kent Organic Farm. "Lex did author many of my programs, and instructed me to learn what I should regarding humans and their customs."

"Oh, well I can't argue that. You are an amazing thing." Clark shook his head a little. "But back to your programming. You analyzed me?"

"Yes. Your physical attributes have a near one-hundred percent symmetry. I have scanned every human, plant and animal with which I have come into contact and only three percent of all creatures have near that degree of flawless proportionality."

"Oh?" Clark gulped. "Well-uh-"

"In fact," MAL continued conversationally as he turned onto Hickory Lane and then pulled to a stop in the Kent Farm driveway.  "The only other human that I have categorized with that level of exquisite conformity is Lex."

"Well, yeah. You're right about that; Lex does have symmetry. Um-Thanks for the ride, MAL."

The door clicked open and Clark left the car. "It was my pleasure, Clark."

Clark stood in the driveway and watched the svelte shape disappear into the distance, a faint frown marring his forehead.

"Clark?" Jonathan strode out of the house and down the steps. "Lex not able to be sociable?"

"Huh? Oh, he wasn't even in the car," Clark said absently, still frowning as he watched the Lamborghini fade into the distance.

"Not in the car? Then who was driving?"

"Oh, MAL was."

"MAL." Jonathan hesitated. "Mallory? A new. . . friend?"

"Huh? Oh! Heh. The car's named MAL. It drove me home." Clark shrugged at his father. "I have this stupid poem to finish analyzing Dad. Let me do that and I can help with stuff."

"There's no rush. Just the fencing and the hay bales mostly."

"Okay." Clark turned toward the barn and his workspace in the Fortress of Solitude.

"Ah Clark?"

"Yeah, Dad?" 

"Next time, call me if you need a ride."

"Yeah. I will, Dad."

\--- 

Lex blinked as he met Clark's rather stormy gaze through the windows of the Talon and the Lamborghini. Odd, Clark was in the passenger--ah.  His brow cleared.  Mal must be driving him. Interesting, that the car should take innitiative like that.  It was not precisely a programmed behavior, but then he did allow for his creation to develop somewhat on its own. Lex made a mental note to download a copy of the AI and examine it thoroughly, but that would have to wait until after he'd spoken with Clark, and after dealing with several persistent issues at LexCorp.  It probably should have bothered him a little more than it did that his car was driving itself around, but that was part of what it was supposed to do, at least for a few days.  Perhaps he'd better make sure to restrict it from coming into Smallville town proper. Just for general safety.  Lex opened the Porsche's door and slipped inside; he had dismissed MAL for the moment from his mind as he drove himself toward the LexCorp. Plans for his forthcoming total liberation of his company from his father's were coming along nicely, or they would, once he arranged things just a little more. 

\---

Lana exited the Talon and turned the key in the deadbolt lock in the door. It was late, nearly ten-thirty, and she longed for a hot bath. Her lips curved a little. Lex and a hot bath would be even better, but-well. First things first. That whole situation with Clark and Lex definitely had to go, and by his annoyed expression this afternoon, it wouldn't be long before it did.  Who'd have thought that having Lex place a chain about her neck might yield such interesting results? She smirked a little more at the images that had been recorded in the security cameras. Clark looked like he'd swallowed something unpleasant when he left.  She certainly hadn't planned it. At least, not consciously. And Lex might protest a little but she saw the result of that spontaneous press against him. There was so much there with which to work--and it would be a pleasure to see Lex do as she bid him. He would. They all did, eventually.

Lana tucked the keyring into her purse and turned, intending to go to car. She stopped however, at the sight of the sleek lines of the Lamborghini in the parking space before her, and grinned. "Lex!" She said with what she hoped was an appropriate amount of girlish glee and stepped from the curb. She wasn't surprised when the door opened for her and it didn't take any thought at all to get in and close the door. "Lex, Thanks so much for--Oh." She blinked at the lack of another occupant.

MAL started the car and pulled out of the parking space almost gently. "You--are Lana?" A melodious and quite androgynous voice rippled from a speaker set into the dash, and a long row of red and green equalizer lights flashed.

"Ye-yes," Lana said very softly as she reached for the door to open it again. Her heart pounded in her ears, it seemed and her breath was uneven.

"I have scanned your form. You are not of a pleasing proportion or atticism." 

"What?!" Lana shook her head, incensed almost at once. "I am so!I--you--whatever you are--you're wrong!"

"Your face is not in proportion with the rest of your form; it is too small. In fact, your entire skull is too small in proportion with the overall length of your body. You are, in a word, squat."

"That's not so! I am simply not tall. I'm in proportion with myself!"

"Interesting. When you contort your face like that you look like a member of any of numerous arboreal bushy-tailed rodents of the genus  _Sciurus_ , of the family Sciuridae."

Lana sat there speechless for a long moment, staring at the row of equalizer lights before she started to scream. "Stop, stop right now! Stop! I want out! LET ME OUT!"

"I'm afraid I can't do that." MAL sounded serenely implacable. 

"Why the HELL not?" Enraged and frightened, Lana glared at the row of red and green equalizer lights. 

"Because you are interfering with that which must not be disturbed."

Lana tried to pull her belt off, pushing at the release for the catch repeatedly. "I don't know what you're talking about!" she insisted.

"You seek to disrupt the `relationship thing' of my owner and his friend. This, for various reasons, cannot be allowed."

"You're crazy-OH!" Lana reached for her purse and the tiny folding knife that she carried inside it.

"I am completely rational. I cannot be any other way." MAL turned into a familiar roadway and pulled to a stop before the old farmhouse Lana once shared with Nell, deliberately driving onto the old wooden storm cellar door. It creaked, the sound likea low scream before breaking into two halves that fell from the hinges and slid down the steps into the darkness below.

"Please, you have to let me out." Lana begged. "Just let me out and I swear, I'll never do anything, anything at all that you would not want me to do."

"Unfortunately, you are lying. And so, I cannot let you go." There was a faint click and a slow hissing sound as MAL sealed the passenger compartment from receiving fresh air from outside and pumped its own exhaust into the small (and now quite air-tight) chamber.  

Lana realized too late that the little knife was too dull, but still she sawed ineffectively at the tough strap of the seatbelt. So dizzy, so tired. She slumped in the seat and breathed just three more times. It was then that the strap of the seatbelt clicked open and she slid out of the car door and down the steps of the old storm cellar. 

Mal felt certain, analyzing various factors, that erosion and the local animals would quickly remove almost any trace of the squirrel-faced human. He could mimic her voice well enough now to send several message and allay suspicion for some time.

\---

"Hey Lex." 

"Hey Clark."

"Give me a ride?"

"Sure." 

MAL opened the door for Clark at Lex's behest. He'd been reprogrammed recently, since some parameters had been quite strange and Lex was eager to correct them, test them, and then sell them to the US Military.

"Um, so, did you get a weird message from Lana?"

"Well I don't know about weird, but it was definitely from Lana. Kind of glad she went back to Paris, actually. She was acting strangely for a while there."

"Yeah. You saw that too? I almost thought she had it in for you."

"In for me?" Lex grinned. "She never did."

"Oh I think she did. The way she watched you-that day in the Talon, before she left? It was like, well. It was like the way you look at MAL."

"I think you're exaggerating Clark." Lex slanted his eyes toward Clark, his expression quite serious. "There's nothing she could have done to separate us." 

Clark grinned, shyly. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"So, uh, Lex?"

"Uh huh?" 

"Aren't you bored way over there?"

\---

MAL hummed to himself and dimmed the windows to opacity. He made a few internal observations and noted quite privately that the maps he had recently downloaded were not quite as accurate as they should be. He would take the time now to rectify such errors while his owner and friend made themselves quite aesthetically pleasing within his passenger compartment.


End file.
